He broke off as a series of sharp flashes danced out in the distance, followed by the rattle of musketry and a dull, confused shouting.
"You perceive," Captain Salt remarked, "that the squadron is not the safest means of reaching Harwich."
"What are they doing out there?"
"They are killing each other."
"That sounds very unpleasant."
"And as the night is too dark to distinguish faces with any certainty, I thought you would prefer to go home by another way."
"A longer way?"
"It is certainly a trifle longer; but then, as it won"t expose you to the risk of being killed-"
"That"s true. I won"t grudge the time."
The explosions of musketry, meanwhile, had been following each other faster and faster, and at length became incessant.
"Bravo!" muttered Captain Salt to himself; "this will take some time to quell."
"What did you say?"
"I was thinking, my son, that "tis lucky you have somebody to look after you."
Tristram sought for his father"s hand and pressed it. "I am not ungrateful, as you think."
"Why should I think so? You will have more yet to thank me for, I hope."
The boat at this moment swung to the left, around a sandy promontory that hid the jets of firearms behind them; but waves of light still flickered across the black sky and the shouting still went on, though growing fainter as they hurried forward. By one of the flashes, more vivid than the rest and accompanied by the crackle of a whole volley, Tristram saw that the boat was now being propelled down a narrow channel, both sh.o.r.es of which he could just perceive across the gloom.
Captain Salt suddenly raised both hands to his mouth, and hollowing the palms, uttered three mournful cries, long and loud, like the wailing of a gull.
Within half a minute the sound was echoed back from the darkness on the right sh.o.r.e, for which the boat immediately headed. After thirty strokes Tristram felt the sand rub beneath the keel, and they came to a stand.
"Show the light!" his father called, jumping out into the water that hardly covered the insteps of his riding-boots.
The red glow of a lantern appeared as if by magic, and revealed a man standing but twenty yards ahead on a gentle slope of sand. He held the lantern in one hand, and his right arm was slipped through the bridles of two horses that waited, side by side, and ready saddled, their breath smoking out on the night wind.
"Dear me," Captain Salt observed, reaching a hand to Tristram, and helping him to land; "I forgot to ask if you could ride."
"A very little, my father."
"You will find it difficult, then, to trot. Therefore we will gallop."
"You intend me to climb upon one of these beasts?"
"That is easy enough."
"I do not deny it; but I suppose you also wish me to stay on."
"Come; we must lose no time."
"Luckily the soil of Holland, as far as I am acquainted with it, is soft and sandy. On the other hand-"
"Well?"
"I was about to remark that they grow an immense quant.i.ty of tulips in this country, which demand a harder soil."
"We shall pa.s.s none."
"That is fortunate. For when I reach home and they ask me, "Well, what have you done in Holland?" it would be sad to own, "I have done little beyond rolling on a bed of tulips.""
With this he climbed into the saddle and thrust his feet well into the stirrups, while his father whispered a word or two to the boatmen, who were about to push off on their return journey.
"Are you ready, my son?" he asked, returning and mounting beside him.
"Quite."
"Forward, then!"
The two horses broke into a trot. "Ugh," exclaimed Tristram, bobbing up and down.
"I told you we must go faster. Stick your knees tightly into the saddle-so."
The wind and the night began to race by Tristram"s ears as his horse leapt forward. The motion became easier, but the pace was terrifying to a desperate degree; for it seemed that he sat upon nothing, but was being whirled through the air as from a catapult at the heels of his father, who pounded furiously through the darkness a dozen yards ahead. For three minutes at least he felt at every stride an extreme uncertainty as to his chances of realighting in the saddle. It reminded him of cup-and-ball, and he reflected with envy that the ball in that game is always attached to the cup with a string.
At the end of ten minutes Captain Salt reined up, and Tristram"s horse, after being carried past for twenty yards by his mere impetus, stopped of his own accord and to his rider"s intense satisfaction.
"Look," said the Captain, pointing to the sky behind them, which was now illumined by a broad scarlet glare.
"What is that?"
"One of the ships on fire."
"Then I am better off where I am."
"Did you doubt it?"
"I was beginning to.... How much farther must we ride?"
"Two leagues."
Tristram groaned, and they set off again, but more slowly, for the road now was paved with bricks instead of the loose sand over which they had travelled hitherto, and moreover it ran, without fence or parapet, along the top of a formidable d.y.k.e, the black waters of which far beneath him caused Tristram the most painful apprehension. Captain Salt, guessing this, slackened the pace to a walk. The glare still reddened the sky behind: but either the firing had ceased or they had pa.s.sed beyond sound of it. At any rate, they heard only the water lapping in the d.y.k.es and the wind that howled over the wastes around.
Tristram had long since lost his hat, and his nose was bleeding from a sharp blow against his horse"s neck. He was trying to stanch the flow when the chimes of a clock pealed down the wind from somewhere ahead and upon his right. His father halted again, and after scanning the gloom for a minute uttered again the three calls that were like the wailing of a gull.
Again the signal was answered, this time from their left, and the spark of a lantern appeared. "Dismount, my son," said the Captain, setting the example and leading his horse by the bridle towards the light; "we leave our horses here."